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It has been almost a year since my Rise of the Runelords campaign came to a bloody conclusion in the depths of Runeforge. I took some time off to run some other games, try out some Pathfinder Society, and let my batteries recharge. When I saw the advertisements for Way of the Wicked, I was intrigued, but only a little bit – I’ve played in two “evil” campaigns in my gaming career (Begun in 1980). One of them was amazing: we were agents of the Zhentarim and I was playing a cleric of Bane. We worked together to enslave the Moonsea and beat the unholy hell out of Semmemon. The other was…well, it was bad. PvP combat was practically the rule and we never really got anywhere or accomplished anything. So I approached WotW with some hesitation. Gary McBride responded by not only dispelling my fears, but making me hungry to run a game once more.
Now, as much as I like Talingarde and the church of Mithra, my players want world they are familiar with. I considered setting the game in Golarion, but it felt like Golarion had enough troubles and the potent and righteous kingdoms waiting to be demolished were few and far between. However, I had been a Forgotten Realms player from way way back. My wife’s very first D&D campaign (1999) was in the Realms. One of my biggest complaints about Faerun was that villains seemed to have a pretty hard time of it. If you didn’t live in the Moonsea, there were Chosen of Mystra, Harpers, and a whole armada of good churches waiting to fall on your poor evil head. One the questions a Realms DM always has to answer is, “Why hasn’t (Insert mighty NPC name here, usually Elminster) solved this problem yet?” Bad guys get a raw deal in Faerun. It’s time for some payback.
So my Way of the Wicked campaign will see the PCs lay waste to the Forest Kingdom of Cormyr. They’ll do battle with Purple Dragon Knights and the Church of Torm (any god that refers to himself as the “True” God in a pantheon should be held suspect). In the coming months, I’ll make some posts about the conversions I’ve made to Cormyr and to the Church of Torm in order to bring so much of what I loved about Gary’s writing into the campaign. The campaign will not actually kick off until the New Year, but I've got a lot of work to do in the meantime!
It’s time for the champions of truth and justice to bend the knee.
Cool. Thanks for the kind words and I look forward to your take on "Way of the Wicked".
Dotted so whenever it begins that I may follow your journals.
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games
Dotted for the future as well. Good luck with your campaign.
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Re-skinning an adventure to go into your own game world is a challenge. I’m in a group that's wrapping up play in a Legacy of Fire campaign, which our DM placed into his homebrew world and he had a heck of a time just trying to keep the name changes straight. When I decided to place Way of the Wicked in Cormyr, I knew I had a lot of work to do – the Forgotten Realms has a ton of printed material and bringing that, even partially, into line with the very hidebound and goody-goody kingdom of Talingarde was a tall order.
So, let’s start at the most logical place – the beginning. The players are supposed to start Way of the Wicked in jail, but not just any jail – the most terrible prison in all the land. In the back of my mind, I already had the idea that Torm was going to undergo some profound life changes as part of the lead-up to the campaign, so I cast about until I came upon the 4th edition map for Cormyr, in which the Forest Kingdom is significantly larger. Looking around on that map, I saw that Darkhold, an old Zhentarim fortress (and the starting point of the only enjoyable evil campaign I ever played in) was now a part of Cormyr. Well, that’s just dandy! One tale of some bold Purple Dragons later and I had Branderscar Prison, once a stronghold of Cormyr's worst enemies, then a defensive post for Cormyr, now relegated to prisoner storage until they are sent to the salt mines or to their final judgment.
One more problem – Talingarde has a lot of water and several parts of the story have to do with sea travel. Once again, the Zhentarim come to my rescue (a change of pace for the Black Network, but what can you do?). So a Zhent smuggling caravan serves both to get my PCs from point A to their doo…er, I mean point B. It also gives me a great excuse to acquire Paizo’s Caravan map pack. Bonus!
Now, the story challenge. When I last left Cormyr, King Foril Obarskyr was advocating for more rights for the peasantry and less power for the nobility, in that egalitarian way that so many monarchs do when under the influence of game writers. How do we get from that to a realm which has one state religion, especially in a place as overwhelmingly multi-denominational as Faerun? Here, Gary McBride saves the day. The story of the Talingarde dynasty remained almost entirely intact, only the names were changes and one big event was inserted to jack up the paranoia level to one that would support a more oppressive religious regime. No doubt Mr. McBride will recognize his own writing heavily used here, but it looks something like this:
Most say the troubles began with the children of King Foril Obarskyr. Foril, the son of Azoun V, had earned the name, “The Victorious” (often today simply shortened to The Victor) by leading the armies of Cormyr against the forces of the Empire of Shade and their client state, Sembia. He also expanded the Forest Kingdom’s borders to the south and west. In the Year of Resurrections Rampant (DR 1441), Foril was crowned King of Cormyr. One of his first official acts was the signing of the Treaty of Griffonfang Bridge, ending the war between Cormyr and Sembia. Having proven himself as a warrior, the nation waited to see what sort of ruler he would be.
The answer was that Foril Obarskyr was the sort of ruler that came along only once every thousand years. At the Battle of Gnoll Pass, the King scattered the Goblinoid tribes of the Stonelands for a generation. His expansion of the Imperial Navy, also known as the Blue Dragons, drove pirate activity out of the Dragonmere entirely. So fearsome was his battle reputation that he could send letters asking “Must we meet on the field of battle?” to errant warlords to bring peace.
The King also proved to be a capable builder and statesman. He directed the War Wizards to assist in the construction of the Watch Wall – a series of fortresses that, along with the Stormhorn Mountains, would at last prove a lasting barrier against assault from the north. As a paladin of Torm, he worked hard to spread the faith of the True God, but also kept to the Penance of Duty and encouraged religious tolerance.
For 25 years the Victor sat upon the throne, bringing a golden age to Cormyr. Today, his statues are to be found in almost every town and hamlet throughout the kingdom. He did have his faults though. Like so many great rulers, he was a great soldier and king but a poor father.
After the death of the Victor, his oldest son Irvel ascended to the throne as King and was called the Learned. More a scholar than a king, Irvel proved largely disinterested in affairs of state. He commissioned the great library at Suzail and began renovation of the ancient Obarskyr castle into the great palace known as the Adarium. As the first wing of the Adarium was completed, he retreated there and was rarely seen in public.
The other son, Prince Erzoured, was not so reserved. Though he had no official power, he often ruled in the king’s absence and commanded great loyalty from the knights of the realm. This might have been an acceptable arrangement. After all, Prince Erzoured was a soldier and an heir of the Victor. He could have become the de facto ruler while the official king sat in his distant pleasure palace and library. Alas, that Prince Erzoured was also mad.
Prince Erzoured became convinced that his mother (who had died in childbirth) was not the queen but an angel of Torm. He believed himself a demigod and incapable of wrong. At first the Prince’s madness was subtle. He often dressed all in white and even had a magic set of wings made for himself that allowed him to soar over the capital.
But in time the visions began. He communed with these so-called angels and they whispered that he should replace his brother and become the true and immortal master of Cormyr. The king received disturbing reports of the prince’s madness and plots but refused to believe them. “My brother but jests,” is famously what Irvel replied to the reports. Finally the “angel” prince would wait no longer. He flew to the Adarium and with a flaming sword slew his own brother amidst his books and proclaimed himself King Erzoured the Immortal. His brother’s two year reign was at an end.
For a brief time, it was possible that Erzoured’s claim of kingship might have been acknowledged. His brother after all was little loved and tongues wagged that getting rid of the absent king was a blessing. Maybe the new king was a divine messenger of Torm’s will. But within days the mad decrees began from the Adarium. The king decreed that Torm’s High Holy Day would no longer be the Divine Death on Eliasas 13 (the day Torm overcame Bane during the Avatar crisis) but instead would become the king’s own birthday. He ordered the military to prepare to invade Hell and commanded his wizards to research opening a great gate. First, he explained to his flabbergasted advisors, the army would go through the gate to Mount Celestia and to the realm of Torm himself to call forth an army of angels. Then the King personally would lead the host to invade the nine hells and overthrow Bane and the forces of Evil.
Finally the people had enough of this madness. Officially, the histories record that after only five months in power, King Erzoured, called the Mad, tried to fly from the highest spire of the Adarium without his magic wings. More likely, he was thrown from the spire by paladins who would tolerate no more of this madman’s blasphemies. Whatever the truth, his reign was over.
Fortunately for Cormyr, Irvel had a son – Baerovel. The grandson of the Victor was neither mad nor a recluse. He had been clever enough to avoid the Adarium and the capital during Prince Erzoured’s angelic rampage. Baerovel was a handsome knight and closely resembled his grandfather the Victor. Thus was Cormyr spared a potentially disastrous war of succession, especially with the Shadovar and the Zhentarim watching closely for weakness.
Baerovel returned to the capital and was crowned king. The new king quickly realized that he needed to solidify his power and explain away the difficulties of the last six and a half years. In short, he needed an enemy to unify the fractured Forest Kingdom. He found one – in the church of Bane.
King Baerovel blamed the cult of Bane for using their black magic to summon a devil to possess the former king thus driving him mad. It was a brilliant political solution (though an utter fiction). It removed blame from the royal house of Obarskyr and instead placed guilt squarely upon an unpopular cult most closely related to the hated Zhentarim. This was the beginning of the Purges. The Knights of the Golden Lion took the lead in destroying the temples. High priests were burned at the stake and the sect was driven underground. Like so many moments of religious fervor, the fire quickly spread beyond its original target. Torm’s faith had become tremendously dominant in Cormyr since the Spellplague and now every other faith was seen as suspect – only Torm had the might to stave off the Black Hand.
Baerovel died comparatively young of a mysterious illness. There were rumors that the Cult of Bane had placed a curse upon the king. These rumors only fuelled the purges further. On the day after Baerovel died, The Most Holy Champion of Torm Vitalian made the Proclamation of Supremacy. Torm would now occupy in fact the position he had occupied de facto for many years – the spiritual leader and guardian of Cormyr. Every other faith was invited to acknowledge their subservience to the True God or to practice that faith somewhere else. The priests of Ilmater, Torm’s former advisor and counselor in the Triad, accepted the new religious law; however, the vast majority of faiths simply shuttered their churches and departed.
King Baerovel was followed by Azoun VI, his son named for a happier time in Cormyrean history. Twenty-two when he took the throne (the same age as the Victor), he has ruled for 15 years as a capable, energetic king who has done much to put bad memories in the past. Beloved by his people, he has proven again and again he is the true heir of the Victor. Early in his reign, he personally led the army to relieve the Watch Wall after another hobgoblin incursion. It was on the watchtower walls that he earned himself the title The Brave.
Azoun VI has continued the prohibition against the cult of Bane and supported the Proclamation of Supremacy, but he does not pursue the purges with the same vigor as his father. After all, that battle is largely won. No one has heard of a Bane cultist in Cormyr for years. Instead, he turns his attention to the west, hoping to be the king who liberates the merchant nation of Sembia from the yoke of the Empire of Shade.
He has failed in one duty however. He has failed to yet produce a son. Instead, he has only one child – a beautiful, brilliant young princess named Bellinda. Twenty years of age, she is already a prodigy of arcane magic. If her father produces no heir it is an open question whether the men of Cormyr will follow a queen instead of a king. Her story is yet to be written.
So Cormyr has become a far harsher power in the last years than it was under the tender mercies of TSR or WotC. Additionally, there is precedent in Cormyr for overlooking female descendants (hence the Steel Regency). For the Barcan line that previously held the throne in Talingarde, I am using the Crownsilver noble family, which descends from the Obarskyrs and, therefore, fulfills certain other needs of the story.
Coming in August – The Church of Torm, the True God!
Great stuff!
I particularly enjoy your writing style. The names could use a little work, though. :)
But seriously, this is a great beginning of adapting "Way of the Wicked" to the Forgotten Realms. I look forward to seeing more of the project.
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games
Dotted for future reading.